What is a Care Home Impartial Assessor?

The Impartial Assessor works on behalf of Hertfordshire Care Homes with the Integrated Discharge Teams and wards at Lister, Watford General and Princess Alexandra Hospital to impartially assess new, returning or self-funded local care home residents and simplify their transition from the hospital to local Care Homes. The Impartial Assessors all have experience of working in the health & social care sector as well as working in a hospital.

We hear all too often about delayed discharges from hospital so we are delighted to have received funding for the Care Home Impartial Assessor service to represent Care Homes and conduct comprehensive assessments on their behalf.

What are the benefits?

Speeds up the discharge process for your residents

Improves communication between the hospital and the care home thanks to a dedicated point of contact

Ensures that your care home is confident that they can provide appropriate care for the resident

Care Home staff can spend their time looking after residents rather than making the journey to and from hospital

How does it work?

The Care Home Impartial Assessor will be alerted to any planned discharges by care homes and by the hospital

The Care Home Impartial Assessor will carry out a comprehensive assessment on behalf of the home

The Care Home Impartial Assessor follows up with the care home 72 hours after discharge to ensure that the discharge has been successful

How can the Care Home Impartial Assessor help you?

“I thought the process and communication were very good and our resident’s discharge went well. I certainly think this process will benefit us at Honister because most of my staff live locally and do not drive, so cannot pick this task up if I am not around. Lister Hospital is a 30 mile round trip from here, so there is sometimes a time issue on busy days. We look forward to working with Heather again in future.”

A Care Home Journey

An interactive online resource to support nursing care

The Royal College of Nursing has created an interactive online resource allowing you to follow a resident’s care home journey through from pre-admission to end of life or to simply access individual sections to meet your learning needs and seek clinical inspiration.

Each section demonstrates the role of nursing staff when supporting the resident, their families and nursing colleagues at a particular stage of the journey – with the resident’s needs being the priority.

The resource provides real-life scenarios and case studies signposting to high quality, evidence-based resources to answer the clinical questions that frequently affect those caring for older people.